I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki : the bestselling South Korean therapy memoir

Deftly blending self-help manual with memoir, Baek Sehee's wryly witty and perceptive book documents her psychiatric sessions over a twelve-week period and how disentangling the causes of depression and anxiety can be such a complex, contradictory process.

PSYCHIATRIST: So how can I help you?

ME: I don't know, I'm - what's the word - depressed? Do I have to go into detail?

Baek Se-Hee is a successful young social media director at a publishing house when she begins seeing a psychiatrist about her - what to call it? - depression?

She feels persistently low, anxious, endlessly self-doubting, but also highly judgemental of others. She hides her feelings well at work and with friends; adept at performing the calmness, even ease, her lifestyle demands. The effort is exhausting, overwhelming, and keeps her from forming deep relationships. This can't be normal. But if she's so hopeless, why can she always summon a yen for her favourite street food, the hot, spicy rice cake, tteokbokki? Is this just what life is like?

Recording her dialogues with her psychiatrist over a 12-week period, Baek begins to disentangle the feedback loops, knee-jerk reactions and harmful behaviours that keep her locked in a cycle of self-abuse. Part memoir, part self-help book, I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki is a book to keep close and to reach for in times of darkness.

MEDIA REVIEWS

'I Want to Die... has been a huge bestseller in Korea and will strike a chord with anyone who feels that their public life is at odds with how they really feel inside. Baek Sehee transcribes the sessions with her psychiatrist as she uncovers the root causes of her anxiety and harmful behaviours, despite the perfect picture she presents to the world.' - Red

THE PHENOMENAL KOREAN BESTSELLER, OVER 100,000 COPIES SOLD IN HARDBACK. TRANSLATED BY INTERNATIONAL BOOKER. SHORTLISTEE ANTON HUR